DURONIA GENS, plebeian. Of this obscure gens no cognomen, and only four members are known, viz.

1. duronia, the mother of P. Aebutius. Her second husband was T. Sempronius Rutilus, who seems to have had a dislike to his stepson Aebutius. His mother, perhaps with a view to get rid of him in some way, wanted to get him initiated in the Bacchanalian orgies at Rome; but Aebutius be­trayed the Bacchanalia to the consuls, who pro­tected him against his mother, and Duronia was thus the cause of the discovery and suppression of those orgies, in b. c. 186. (Liv. xxxix. 9, 11, 19.)

2. L. duronius, was praetor in b. c. 181, and obtained Apulia for his province, to which the Istri were added, for ambassadors from Tarentum and Brundusium had complained of the piracy of the Istri. He was at the same time commissioned to make inquiries concerning the Bacchanalia, of which some remaining symptoms had been observed the year before. This commission was in all proba­bility given him for no other reason but because those symptoms had been observed in the districts which had been assigned to him as his province. Subsequently he sailed with ten vessels to Illyri-cum, and the year after, when he returned to Rome, he reported that the Illyrian king Genthius was the cause of the piracy which was carried on in the Adriatic. (Liv. xl. 18, 19, 42.)

3. M. duronius, a Roman senator, who was ejected from the senate in b. c.97 by the censors, M. Antonius, the orator, and L. ValeriusFlaccus ; for Duronius in his tribuneship (probably in the year b. c. 98) had abolished a lex sumptuaria^ and bad used very frivolous and reckless expressions on that occasion. In revenge he brought an accusa­tion for ambitus against the censor M. Antonius. (Val. Max. ii. 9. § 5; Cic. de Orat. ii. 68 ; comp. C4.)

DYMAS (Auyttas), a son of Aegimius, and bro­ ther of Pamphylus and Hyllus. The three tribe into which each Doric state was divided, derived their names from these three brothers, and were called accordingly Hylleis, Dymanes, and Pam- phyli. Dymas and Pamphylns were believed to have lived from the time of Heracles until the con­ quest of Peloponnesus, when both fell. (Apollod ii. 8. § 3 ; Schol. ad Find. Pyfh. Ii. 121, where the third brother is called Dorus ; Paus. vii. 16. § 3 There are three other mythical personages of this name. (Horn. II. xvi. 719; Apollod. iii. 12. § 5; Ov. Met. xi. 761; Horn. Od. vi. 22 ; Virg. Aen. ii 310,428.) [L. S.]

DYNAMIUS. 1. A legal pleader of Bordeaux, known to us through a short poetical memoir in elegiac verse, composed after his decease by his friend Ausonius. From this little piece we learn

DYSPONTEUS.

that Dynamius was compelled to quit his native city in consequence of being charged, not unjustly it would seem, with adultery, that he took refuge under the assumed name of Flavinius at Lericla, where he practised as a rhetorician, and that he there wedded a wealthy Spanish bride. Late in life he paid a short visit to the place of his birth, but soon returned to his adopted country, where he died. (Auson. Prof, xxiii.)

2. A grammarian of uncertain date, the author of an "Epistola ad Discipulum" to be found in the " Paraenetici Scriptores Veteres" of Melchior Goldast. (Insul. 4to, 1604.) He is believed by some to be the same with No. 3.

3. Of Aries, born of a noble family in the mid­dle of the sixth century, and at the early age of thirty appointed governor of the province of Mar­seilles, where he soon became notorious for tyranny and extortion, persecuting with especial hostility the bishop Theodorus, whom he drove into banish­ment, confiscating at the same time the revenues of the see. As he advanced in life, however, a singular change was wrought in his character by remorse or some motive now unknown. He be­came the obedient instrument of pope Gregory, the zealous champion of the rights of Rome, lavished his ill-gotten hoards on the endowment of monas­teries, and ended his life in a cloister about A. d. 601. In youth he composed several poetical pieces, which are warmly lauded by Fortunatus of Poitiers; but the only productions of his pen now extant are the Vita S. Marii^ abbot of Bevon, an abridgment of which is given in the Acta of Bol-landus under the 27th of January; and the Vita S. Maocimi, originally abbot of Lerins, but after­wards bishop of Riez, contained in the collection of Surius under 27 Nov., and in a more correct form in the " Chronologia S. Insulae Lerinensis," by Vincentius Barralis, Lugdun. 4to, 1613. [W.R.]

DYRRHACHIUS (Au^ax'os), a son of Po­seidon and Melissa, from whom the town of Dyrra-chium derived its name ; for formerly it was called Epidamnus, after the father of Melissa. (Paus. vi. 10, in fin.; Steph. Byz. s. v. Avppdxiov.) [L. S.]

DYSAULES (Au<rai5\rjs), the father of Tri- ptolemus and Eubuleus, and a brother of Celeus. According to a tradition of Phlius, which Pausa- nias disbelieved, he had been expelled fromEleusis by Ion, and had come to Phlius, where he intro­ duced the Eleusinian mysteries. His tomb was shewn at Celeae, which he is said to have named after his brother Celeus. (Paus. i. 14. § 2, ii. 14. § 2.) [L. S.]

DYSPONTEUS or DYSPO'NTIUS (Awr-Trovrevs or auctttoi/t/os), according to Pausanias (vi. 22. § 6), a son of Oenomaus, but according to Stephanus of Byzantium (s. v. AvcnrovTiov), a son of Pelops, was believed to be the founder of the